Assigning a single IPv6 address to devices

Assigning a single IPv6 address to devices

by | 05-Oct-2019

I have been running IPv6 and IPv4 concurrently. At Cisco Live San Diego 2019  I shared some of my experiences with Jeffry Handal (I met him initially at CiscoLive Barcelona 2019)  and somewhow we ended up talking about IPv6 and how by default you receive multiple IPv6 addresses. To me, that was one of my frustrations, so my network is setup in such a way that it only assigns a single IPv6 address. It appears that such a setup is not very common. So I would like to share with you how my IPv6 network is configured.

My network consists of an ASA firewall (soon to be replaced with the FirePower 1010), a 3560 compact switch that acts as L3 switch, and a Catalyst 9800 Wireless Controller (yep, moved from Mobility Express to the Cat9k wireless IOS-XE). The figure below shows my network topology.

In this network setup, the 3560 acts as L3 switch and DHCP server (both IPv4 and IPv6). It is absolutely possible to use an external DHCP server and use helpers instead. But for my home network that is, well, not necessary. The configuration on the client VLAN is shown below:

interface Vlan300
 description clients
 ip address 192.168.1.1 255.255.255.0
 ipv6 address FE80::300 link-local
 ipv6 address 2001: db8:face:300::1/64
 ipv6 enable
 ipv6 nd prefix 2001:db8:face:300::/64 300 300 no-autoconfig
 ipv6 nd managed-config-flag
 ipv6 nd router-preference High
 ipv6 nd ra interval 30
 ipv6 dhcp server clients-300 rapid-commit
end

By setting the managed-config-flag and disabling auto-config on the prefix I effectively state that my switch is the only router and device allowed to assign and distribute IPv6 addresses. I effectively disable every auto-magic feature within IPv6 except DHCPv6. The configuration I use for that DHCPv6 server is defined below:

ipv6 dhcp database flash:dhcpv6-db
ipv6 dhcp pool clients-300
 address prefix 2001:db8:face:300::/64 lifetime 86400 86400
 link-address 2001:db8:face:300::/64
 dns-server 2620:119:35::35
 dns-server 2620:119:53::53
 domain-name clients.nefkens.net
!

Using this configuration all my devices (and yes, Jeffry told me that Android devices do not support DHCPv6 so go complain at Google for that) receive a single IPv6 address, as can be shown in the screen shot below.

Although it might not be common, it is very much possible to use DHCPv6 and only assign a single IPv6 address to each device. It will make your life for troubleshooting or looking at management systems, such as Firepower Management Center, DNA Center, or Syslog server a lot easier.

PoC on Network API’s

PoC on Network API’s

by | 27-Jun-2019

At Cisco Live 2018 Barcelona, Cisco Systems announced API’s to get network assurance data from Cisco DNA Center. The possibility to get information from the status of the network, its connected clients via an API is very powerful.

The power of network API’s started me thinking in what could be possible if you bring these network API’s to the software developer world, where using API’s (also known as frameworks) are as common as a simple if-statement.

Around the same time, Apple Systems announced a major upgrade of their Augmented Reality framework (Also a set of API’s which allows a developer to create a virtual reality overlay to a camera shot).

I talked with a System Engineer working with DNAC in Barcelona and shortly afterward of that idea and we agreed that I could demonstrate an application that showcases such possibilities in one of his sessions in 2019. 

And that plan came true. I was a speaker at a Cisco Live breakout session in Barcelona this year and demonstrated this application. I will write down that experience at a later time (if there is interest). But since that demonstration, I have received a number of requests to either publish the application or make that video available for demonstration purposes. So here it is.

PoC: Visual Wireless Troubleshooting App

The troubleshooting of a wireless network can be quite difficult, because of its dynamics and specifically, remote troubleshooting is challenging, checking out your laptop, determining to which Access Point it is connected and which clients are connected.

I created an application that uses a number of new emerging technologies, such as machine learning, augmented reality and of course the Network Intent API’s to demonstrate how an application can make that life easier.

The flow for the user is quite simple.

  1. Start the app
  2. Point the camera to a Cisco Access Point
  3. Machine Learning / Image Recognition will recognize that it is an Access Point
  4. Determine the access point name (on Apple iOS is that more than Android)
  5. Go to DNA Center and get all clients connected to that AP
  6. And show that in an AR experience

I built this app and demonstrated it at Cisco Live 2019 in Barcelona and used Cisco Live’s own DNA Center for the data. The screen recording I made for the app is shown below.

As you can see, I point my camera up to the ceiling, the AP is recognized and the client data is retrieved. If there is interest, I can share more insights in how I connect to DNA Center (using Swift) and how to get that data. As said this is just a proof of concept and a lot more can be built if you bring the programmable network to the software engineering world!

If you have some ideas, please share them. Who knows, somebody might build your dream App, or.. Start coding on your own. Check out Cisco’s DevNet for network programming API’s and Apple’s Swift Playground  and start coding!

Cisco NL Strategic Innovation Tour 2019

Cisco NL Strategic Innovation Tour 2019

by | 17-Jun-2019

Fortunately, Cisco Netherlands organized another innovation tour for Cisco Partners in the week before Cisco Live US in San Diego. This time the innovation tour spanned two days and included visits to four tech companies in Sillicon Valley. In this blog I’d like to share my experiences of the tour.  

Apple Systems

Our first company visit was Apple Systems. And while many business visits happen at the 1 infinite loop building in Cupertino, we were honored to be invited to the new Apple Park campus building in Cupertino.

After a bit of a delayed start (well, Apple Park is huge!), we were welcomed by Apple in an environment quite beautiful .

There were a number of briefings, which were all very interesting. One was on how Apple is working with partners in its ecosystem, that not only includes Cisco on the networking side, but also a huge partnership with IBM on Swift and App developments. Another session was on how Apple sees the future, their role in the enterprise and they demo’ed several aspects of which were related to privacy, the announcements made at WWDC2019 earlier that week.

What really stood out for me was the way they demonstrated their new VoiceControl options for those that have disabilities. The video touched me, as I thought back to my father who died of A.L.S. in 2009, and how he might have used that (for a short period of time, as his speech deteriorated too). Besides this video, the capabilities of endpoint management that Apple can offer (both with and without supervised mode) were demonstrated, including a short briefing on the WWDC2019 announcement of having two distinct data-profiles on your iPhone. Of course, I already knew that a lot is possible for endpoint management on Apple devices, but the demo made clear that quite some nice new features have been introduced.

After the formal briefing sessions, we were invited to Apple’s visitor center, right across Apple Park. We got a tour through the visitor center, how it mirrors the new Apple Park Campus design and besides an awesome Augmented Reality app (see image below, thanks to Fred Spikker), the guide also explained how Apple park can already be so lush and green, while the building is only 2 years old! Steve Jobs and Jony Ive wanted to have employees working at Apple Park a full-grown experience, so they grew trees in other locations and moved them after the construction was finished!

But what really stood out to me was not the amazing design of the building itself, but the sustainability of the building. The building has zero CO2 footprint (even negative footprint, e.g. reducing) by large solar panels for power generation, but also the airflow of the cool San Francisco breeze is used to cool the building. They only need Airconditioning 3 months a year, the rest of the time, the wind is used for cooling. And yes, it was comfortable inside!

Meraki

Our second visit on the first day was to Meraki HQ in San Francisco. And although we arrived late, we were welcomed at the Meraki office.

The session with Meraki and the tour around their office was interesting. Meraki still has a typical valley-startup vibe to it, which is acknowledged by the fact that personal packages can be delivered (or picked up) at the office, food provided by Meraki, dynamic office environments and not to forget, you can bring your dog along.

I don’t know what I can publicly share on the content of the sessions, but Meraki is really integrating more with Cisco Systems on several fields, such as integration with SDA and of course network programmability. Meraki of course already supported API’s, but they now have an API first strategy, so in time, everything you see in the web interface is effectively an API call to the backend. 

Cisco Systems

A visit to Cisco itself can of course not be forgotten. Day 2 started with a visit to Cisco’s Customer Experience Center in San Jose. And besides bumping into Chuck Robbins when walking through the center, we had some very interesting briefings.

The first briefing detailed the change that Cisco is foreseeing in the partnership. With Cisco profiling more as a software company, the partnership is changing. Don’t worry, Cisco still strongly believes and is committed to the partner model, but a different type of partners emerge besides just supplying the hardware boxes. It is part of the digital transformation and the journey a lot of organizations are on.

Image courtesy of Fred Spikker

The second briefing was very interesting. It was presented by Hugo Latapie, one of the experts on Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning. What I truly loved about it is that he didn’t only demonstrate what can be done with deep fusion reasoning, but also the drawbacks on AI/ML. There are plenty of samples on the Internet where an image, used for learning, can be changed in such a way that a completely different object is recognized.

 

The last briefing was with Edwin Paalvast. As he is also Dutch, his briefing was in Dutch and he shared his vision on the challenges many enterprises face, and how Cisco can support them. And typical Dutch, we had a discussion on that vision and challenged one and another. I must say, I did recognise the problems he described and see them in my own environment too. And although the dot on the horizon is clear, the road to it is still a journey with a lot of hurdles to take in.

 

And well, we were at the customer experience center, so we also received a very nice demo on how Cisco’s security portfolio supports the enterprise and the world in a more secure environment.

NVIDIA

The last company visit of this innovation tour was with Nvidia, in their brand new headquarters. What a beautiful building and what a difference with Meraki and the other companies too. 

NVidia welcomed us with a reference to an article that states that businesses in The Netherlands are, according to research, leading the way in applying Artificial Intelligence. And that not only the large corporations use them. 

 

After this quick intro, the four technology pillars of NVidia (Gaming, Professional Visualization, Artificial Intelligence, and Self-Driving Cars) were explained.

 

All these four pillars are driven by the same common technology, also known as GPU and how the innovation and evolution of the GPU have brought enormous computational power to different sectors.

The briefing also detailed on how AI has changed the world around us already, with AI driving suggestions within Search Engines, Image Recognition and other industrial fields. After a short explanation on the Cisco-NVIDIA partnership (where you can get these amazing GPU’s in an UCS appliance for VDI deployments or GPU-based machine learning), the power of GPU’s for AI were demonstrated along a number of verticals.

What I really liked about the story of Nvidia is their single platform strategy on GPU’s. Nvidia has a Deep Learning Institute that teaches organizations (and individuals) on how you use deep learning to solve complex problems. Everybody can take sessions within this institute and get started on GPU-based AI/Machine learning. And the single platform strategy means that you can start coding solutions yourself on a developer board, such as the Jetson Nano ($99) or Jetson TX2 (twice the power) and you can then scale that up to GPU-based cloud services or an on-prem solution without changing your code.
And yes, within the networking industry, we are only just getting started programming the network, imagine what you can do with your programming skills on these GPU’s. There is a whole new world out there. I bought one of these developer kits to see how I can use GPU computational power to solve networking problems…

After the briefing itself, we were showed around NVidia’s Customer Experience Center. In that center, they have demonstrations on all the things you can do with GPU’s, from image-learning at a much larger pace, to a visualized photo of a woman, which is not a real person (freaky), to the possibilities of creating a 3D cut of x-ray visions in the medical industry, or a short trailer of a completely computer-rendered movie, very realistic.

Summary

It is quite difficult to provide a summary of this year’s innovation tour. It was jam-packed and although each visited company is technology-focused, they have their own culture, vision, and strategy.

And throughout these differences, there is a thin red lining that touches all these companies, whether they are one of the thought leaders or applying them. And that is that technology is changing our lives in ways that we could not fathom five years ago. AI and ML are technologies that are here to stay, there are some drawbacks (like telling what is real and what is not, or that the quality of learning is poor, and some philosophical and social discussions that really need to take place). The general goal of this technology is for the good and to improve the quality of life. 

If I had to summarize the tour and things I saw and learned, I would use the following word.

WOW!!

(I really hope that 2020 will also have an Innovation Tour!)

Intent Based Networking is a journey

Intent Based Networking is a journey

by | 04-Feb-2018

Although I primarily prepared this blog in advance, last week I presented my session at Cisco Live Barcelona in which I presented three tips to start your journey on Intent Based Networking. In this post I would like to provide a bit more thought about why software defined access is needed and what it is gonna entail for every organisation.  (more…)